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UN committee plans to investigate widespread disappearances of people in Mexico

Texas Public Radio | By Stephania Corpi

Published April 18, 2025 at 8:54 AM CDT

Faced with the Mexican government's denial and the National Human Rights Commission's refusal to provide support to the United Nations regarding the missing persons crisis, victims' families held a conference at the Glorieta de los Desaparecidos (Glorieta of the Disappeared) to announce the activities that groups will carry out across almost the entire country to find traces of their loved ones.

The UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances has invoked Article 34 of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. This is the first time in its history that the committee has activated this urgent mechanism, underscoring the gravity of the situation.

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A United Nations committee said in early April that it will investigate widespread disappearances of people in Mexico.

The UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances has invoked Article 34 of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.

This is the first time in its history that the committee has activated this urgent mechanism, underscoring the gravity of the situation.

The UN explained that an "enforced disappearance is considered to be the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the State, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the protection of the law."

The Mexican national registry now lists more than 127,000 individuals, with more than 5,600 clandestine graves discovered and at least 72,000 unidentified bodies stored in overwhelmed forensic institutions.

The impunity rate for enforced disappearance remains at 99%.

The UN has warned about the structural nature of disappearances in Mexico for more than a decade.

President Claudia Sheinbaum denied that her government is complicit in forced disappearances, but the UN accused many government officials of being involved with organized crime and forced displacements.